In a bit of good news, the Athletic Toronto’s James Mirtle has reported that the NHL is likely to see the salary cap go up for the upcoming season.

In a bit of bad news, though, it isn’t expected to go up by much.

Mirtle reports that NHL commissioner Gary Bettman expects the league to see each team’s cap ceiling – which serves as the hard upper limit for a team’s total payroll per season – go up by just two million, inching up from $73 million in the 2016-17 campaign to $75 million for the coming year:

“According to several sources,” Mirtle wrote, “the most likely outcome is a salary cap figure of $75 million next season. That is only a $2-million rise from last year. It would mean that the NHLPA voted against using the full 5 per cent growth factor, something it has only done once previously in 12 seasons under the salary cap.”

Each year, the NHL Player’s Association has the option to activate what is considered an ‘escalator clause’, pitching in to the league’s overall revenue with part of their escrow fund – an allotted amount taken from each player’s paycheck over the year to serve as an fund in case revenue falls short of expectations – to increase the revenue figures and inch the cap upwards.